Affiliated to TropMedEurop - representing the leading houses in tropical medicine in Europe - TropNet was founded under the name TropNetEurop in 1999 to create a "European Network on Imported Infectious Disease Surveillance".

Growing over the years TropNetEurop has been renamed to TropNet in 2010 in the course of structural reforms and is currently the largest European Tropical and Travel Medicine Network, representing 72 specialised centres spread throughout Europe.